NATO Chief May Resign Over Scandal

By CRAIG R. WHITNEY

Published: October 15, 1995

PARIS, Oct. 14—
The NATO Secretary General, Willy Claes, said today that he was considering resigning, after a Belgian parliamentary commission decided this morning to recommend that the country's highest court indict him in a widening arms corruption scandal.

If Mr. Claes were forced to resign, after little more than a year in office, the 16-nation alliance would be leaderless as it enters a crucial period. The organization faces possible expansion to include new members in central Europe and the assumption of a peacekeeping role with up to 60,000 soldiers if a political settlement is reached in Bosnia.

Mr. Claes, a 56-year-old Flemish politician, defended himself for six hours Friday before former colleagues in an all-party Belgian parliamentary commission.

The panel is investigating charges that when he was Economic Affairs Minister of Belgium in 1988, his Socialist Party took $1.72 million in kickbacks from the Italian aircraft manufacturer Agusta S.p.A. for a $267 million contract to build 48 helicopters for the Belgian Army.

"I had the opportunity to confirm that I am totally innocent," Mr. Claes said after last night's hearings.

But after this morning's decision by the commission to allow the Belgian Supreme Court to indict him if Parliament votes on Thursday to lift his immunity, Mr. Claes told Belgian radio, "I am absolutely stunned."

Asked whether he would resign, he said, "I must examine the text and think about it before making any decision," and he said he would have to "have the necessary consultations within NATO."

One NATO colleague said it seemed increasingly unlikely that Mr. Claes could hold onto his job, and diplomats said informal consultations were already under way about possible successors.

The more or less declared candidates include Ruud Lubbers, a former Prime Minister from the Netherlands who ran unsuccessfully for the Presidency of the European Union's Executive Commission last year, and the former Prime Minister of Denmark, Uffe Ellemann-Jensen.

Douglas Hurd, who resigned as British Foreign Secretary earlier this year, has also been suggested, as has Lord Owen of Britain, the former Foreign Secretary David Owen.

Lord Owen was the European Union's mediator for the former Yugoslavia until last year, and in that position he was often criticized by American officials for yielding too easily to the Bosnian Serbs.

Mr. Claes, an amateur musician who often makes guest appearances as a symphony orchestra conductor, was Foreign Minister of Belgium when he was picked to succeed Manfred Worner of Germany in September of 1994 after Mr. Worner died of cancer.

But early this year, investigators pursuing the Belgian bribery scandal began putting the spotlight on Mr. Claes. At first, he denied even hearing about illegal payments by the Agusta firm. But in February, after a fellow leader of the Flemish-speaking Socialist Party said he remembered Mr. Claes being at a meeting when the party treasurer, Etienne Mange, said he had heard the Italians were offering bribes for the helicopter contract, he acknowledged his presence.

He insisted, though, that he had told Mr. Mange to reject the offer. The former treasurer has been jailed since February, and his lawyers have said that he ignored Mr. Claes's advice and took the money.

Mr. Claes has maintained that he never knew that any money had actually changed hands, insisting on this even after his former chief of staff at the Economic Affairs Ministry, Johan Delanghe, was arrested and charged in February.

Mr. Claes went ahead with a planned visit to the United States and a meeting with President Clinton in March even though by that time, the Defense Minister of the Netherlands, Joris Voorhoeve, was saying it was time for him to step down.